the war stories remix
by aaabbbey
Summary: A remix of Sangerin's story, Ashes of Soldiers. JP, JOwen. Heavy angst.


Ashes of Soldiers (the war stories remix)  
  
Original Story: Ashes of Soldiers by Sangerin  
  
Summary: Janeway reflects on her relationships with Owen and Tom Paris.  
  
Rating: R  
  
Written for the Remix/Redux II  
Set in an AU where Voyager took 15 years to get home, P & T broke up and C/7 never happened. Thanks to Djinn for the beta.  
  
Chakotay and Tom think I'm crazy. And that's fine. It's easier this way. Easier to let them believe I've lost my mind than to explain that after fifteen long years as captain, I'm overdue for some depravity. They just aren't capable of believing that I'm partly human.  
  
Admiral Paris understood, however. Seven months ago, he called me into his office and explained that Voyager was to be scrapped. No tears were shed, no platitudes exchanged. A loss of that depth can only be accepted with a gruff handshake and silent nods.  
  
"Well. A new assignment for me, then?" I had asked, knowing full well the answer.  
  
We both chuckled.  
  
"Perhaps. But they're hinting at promotion, actually. It could take months. Until then, you're on extended leave." He turned to me, stood so that I could see the scars and worry lines framing his face. "I'd make good use of that time, Kathryn. Have fun."  
  
And so I did. I beamed to South America and found a bar where I could get drunk easily. Where the locals wouldn't recognize me.  
  
I'm not generally one for drowning sorrows, but apparently fifteen years in deep space can do things to a person. You wear the fittings of humanity for so long that they become attached to your body. The armor of solitude, banner of liberty, sword of justice, shield of compassion....they weld to your body, become inherent in your every thought. In doing so, these ideals warp. They spot. They tarnish. Fuse them together with Borg plating fueled by the blood of 34 crewmen and you become a being that has lost every concept of conventional love and conventional fun. Through immersion in humanity, you are no longer human.  
  
I suffered Chakotay's messages patiently. I wrote him. I went walking, hiking through remote trails until my palms bled and my mind was dull and aching. I got drunk. I slept in late. I slept for hours at a time. I watched holovids. But it wasn't enough. The end of enforced, comfortable solitude is loneliness. But I have never been comfortable with the idea of bedding strangers, and the men in the bar could see that I was too complicated for their limited time.  
  
Waking up alone and sick in a dirty motel room somewhere in Brazil was losing its appeal. Which was part of my plan, really. Getting it out of my system, hitting bottom so I could come back up. But some things don't leave. Not easily, at least. Voyager was my reason for living. I needed to grieve. But finding how to do so was difficult.  
  
Tom sensed that I needed help. He came down to Brazil, pulled me out of the street. Put me up in his hotel suite on the good side of town, made me stop drinking. It was good of him. He took care of me, got me coffee. He didn't plan on sleeping with me. I didn't plan on it either, but he was there, and he was warm, and he didn't ask questions or speak until spoken to. He didn't think any sort of love came into it.  
  
But Tom touched me. And it could never be that simple. Didn't he know that those who touch their COs are either sent to the brig or lie on blank beds in blank quarters where the losses and marks of every battle are thrashed with, cried into the room's pale shadows?  
  
I know.  
  
It started after the Cardassian prison.  
  
Admiral Paris would stand at his desk for hours, staring into nothing. He frequently did this after battles, after intelligence operations. It scared me. The helplessness. I had often been on the same missions he had, I had served on his ship, and I was not in his universe. I could not reach him. Could not reach him except to put a palm on his forearm, wait patiently for orders.  
  
During those times, he would touch me. Reach out and grip my side, or touch me in some way. I would take him to my quarters, take him to bed.  
  
Calloused skin greeted me. He would pluck the pips off my collar, almost tenderly, lay the pips on the bedside table, where they sounded in short circling whispers. Two pips, three pips.  
  
His bruises and scars left imprints on my eyes, told the stories he wouldn't recall verbally. His face relaxed, eased tremulously with pressure of my lips, my fingers on his shoulders, back. All the while his hand a vise on my hip. It was sometimes frightening, the force with which he gripped my body, wrote red and yellow words of war, suffering, and isolation in the book that is my skin's memory.  
  
I wondered if in his delirium he sometimes imagined me Cardassian. If he let me feel that hate. If he wanted me to. He did not retell that story often. I knew what it was to fuck like a Cardassian. To be fucked by one. I suppose he did too.  
  
I was more than his whore, less than a lover. It was not until I took command of the Billings, that I realized love had entered into it. On my part, at least.  
  
I understood why Tom touched me. Why he let me touch him, bite him gently, leave bruises and desire conspicuous on his skin. Soon, I did not need drugs or drink or any sort of painful indulgence. I didn't need anything else. I trusted him, you see, and the press of two trusting skins is potent. Has always been potent for me.  
  
We left for Chakotay's cabin shortly afterward.  
  
Chakotay hides it well, but his mind is still stuck in the future. A false future, with me.  
  
Tom understands that I don't love him. Not conventionally, at least. And he has accepted that we probably won't meet frequently. He left Starfleet after our return. Broke up with B'Elanna. There is little doubt in my mind that they will one day rebuild their relationship. As Tom will rebuild his with the brass, and his father. He will be back, Starfleet never releases its own. Its brats. Either way, through work or memory, it is there. And it will reach him again.  
  
Chakotay is talking about happy endings. He wants a happy ending, he has always dreamed of one. I tell him that not everyone wants one, that Tom doesn't. Chakotay knows the same applies to me. Voyager has been recycled. Tom Paris roams the galaxy. And still, Chakotay speaks in myths and metaphors--words that can't be blotted onto the skin in low harsh cries and the accompanying silence.  
  
I don't want a happy ending. I want a new ship.  
  
END 


End file.
